Analysts see no respite from higher costs until end of 2018

The price of memory chips, key components in mobile phones and computers, is likely to continue rising until the end of 2018, when the technology matures to enable greater production capacity, analysts said on Tuesday.

The comments came after memory chips experienced a price surge in the past six quarters, putting heavy pressure on mobile phone makers and triggering concerns about illegal pricing behavior.

Hattie He, an analyst at market research company Canalys, said it will take about another year for chip makers to upgrade their manufacturing technology, so as to enlarge the production capacity of 3D NAND memory chips, a type of high-end non-volatile memory chip that can store data without using power.